The CPU/memory are fine, use whatever you have there. The power supply might be light, so that would probably be something to upgrade. The case may have terrible airflow, but that may be easily fixed with some fans. All in all, it might work.

The kicker here are the PCI slots. Assuming you have no PCIe (I suppose you might, and if so, you're good to go to an extent), you'd need to use these: https://cablesaurus.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=21

If you go for more than 1 PCI->PCIe card, that'll add a bit of cost, and you'd likely need to find some way to handle the video cards since they probably won't fit in the case normally. You'd also likely need some riser cables, maybe even some powered ones if you're looking at a higher-end video card, so that'll keep adding up.

Question when looking at the power requirements for a video card if it says 450W so if I buy 2 should I presume I need 900W power supply?

Eh not exactly.

When they say 450w they make some assumptions.

1) It's a crappy non 80+ certified power supply (PSU) with weak 12v rails (eg Orion 585w).2) This wattage is to also cover some typical mobo, cpu, a HDD or two and a optical drive or two.

A second card should only require you to go up by the amount JUST the card draws... say 150w but that really depends on the cards. Mostly look for the correct total # of PCIe plugs and the power supply will usually be up to snuff.

I run single HD5850s off of Rosewill 80+ certified 530w PSUs (RG530-S12) and they've outlasted everything except my PC Power & Cooling units.

I run two HD5830s off of same sort of PSUs in the 630~750w range. Again, I've had good look with the better Rosewills from Newegg but Sentey makes a good unit if you're not up for the Seasonic or PCP&C prices. (RG630-S12, RG700-S12). A bit bigger unit from Sentey GSP850-SM.

These units are also running 4 or 6 core CPUs that are at full load 24/7 with BOINC while the GPUs mine with Diablo under CrunchBang (#!) Linux.

Hope this helps. Skip

- da shu @ HeliOS (http://www.heliosinitiative.org/), "A child's exposure to technology should never be predicated on an ability to afford it."

The P4 should be fine to use, but everything else is going to be a bust, minus hdd and cd-rom like you said. Luckily, there's a bunch of LGA775 mobos around with PCI-E buses that should be cheap enough for mining.

I was looking at some Radeon 5750 and wanted to do a dual set up thats why I asked. Very useful info thanks!

Oh yea, the HD5750s are very light on the power supply and a good buy. You MIGHT also look at the HD5770s. When I did some calcs (payback times) two weeks ago that was one of the best bang for the buck cards I could buy at easily available new prices. Quick check shows them to be almost the same price as 5750s on newegg.com. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102898

I think you could run two of these off of a good 530~550w PSU assuming you're not running 5 HDDs and a loaded OC'd 6 core AMD also. When the run the special (every other month) you can pick up one of those RG530-S12 units for ~$50. Mine run in a garage that got to 106F today.

As long as I'm spewing out opinions... I used to do a lot of BOINC number crunching on vid cards and I've had a fairly wide variety of cards (HIS, XFX, Diamond, MSI, Gigabyte, Power Color, BioStar, Sapphire, Palet, EVGA, BFG, Zotacs, etc. etc.) and at least with ATI GPU based cards I've had my best luck with Sapphires.

Best of luck to ya, Skip

PS: Is this just a mining rig? If so, I'd forgo using a case if there's a "Container Store" nearby. My old BOINC farm from late last year. I can show ya'll this only because you don't know were I live so you can't call the guys from the funny farm to come get me ;-)

The P4 should be fine to use, but everything else is going to be a bust, minus hdd and cd-rom like you said. Luckily, there's a bunch of LGA775 mobos around with PCI-E buses that should be cheap enough for mining.

And a slew of CPUs that'll go in 'em on the used market if his P4 isn't LGA775/ As I recall the earlier ones weren't but then I'm old and my personal memory will not pass memtest.

If you're buying new stuff you might save a couple $$ going with a AM2/3 socket for an AMD X2 of some sort.

- da shu @ HeliOS (http://www.heliosinitiative.org/), "A child's exposure to technology should never be predicated on an ability to afford it."